


Endings

by Washedawaycloud



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Flash Fiction, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 09:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16472792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Washedawaycloud/pseuds/Washedawaycloud
Summary: A quick look at a moment before the ENd of Commander Jayla Shepard's life





	Endings

Fate Leads the Willing 

Fighting is clarity, that is a very simple truth for Jayla Shepard. It’s been true since she was a kid on the streets. No parents, because they got killed, no more delicate dancing, it was street gangs and a war on all sides. She didn’t join a single one, and took the lumps for it, learned to dodge, how to hit so it didn’t break anything, and she _ripped_ through her enemies with a single-mindedness that had caught many an eye over the years. 

34 years old, surrounded by Aliens and she was more at home than she’d ever felt in her life before. She had a few humans left on her team, but honestly, they left faster than anyone else. She wasn’t right – not to them. She valued life, but only to the point she’d spare it where she could and she wasn’t about to talk it out for more than a few minutes before heatsinks started to pop. 

“You’re more Prothean than Human anymore.” The flanged voice of her latest stray breaks over her like a wave. He’s not speaking universal. She can tell, the implant is buzzing but she doesn’t need it. Her smile is grim as she looks out over the ruined view of Thessia. 

“I probably always was, by your standards.  Or – no, probably more Turian, I tended to use my claws as a kid and teenager.” 

“You still do. The biotics you favor tend to act like sharp appendages.” 

She smirks, tossing her half head of dreads. It wasn’t Alliance standard at all, but she didn’t give a single damn anymore. This war had drained all her damns right out of her. It had taken so much. So fucking much from all of them. She looks one last time before the mass effect fields start to make the world look like one big ball of static. 

“Not many, if any, of us, are going to survive this.” Her eyes, sharp and dangerous umber rimmed faintly in red, settle on yellow-green. 

“I have no reason to stay. Do you?” 

Her eyes slide away, Miranda was gone; Ash was gone, Liara may as well be gone, gone to a darker side. Jacob was out there, but he might not be much longer. Jack was fighting, but she’d go out with a bang. Wrex, Grunt, Mordin, _Tali_. Her death toll was climbing at a sharp rate, too sharp. 300,000 batarians, at her squad in the Thresher nest… All those kids that stood between her and making it to the next morning alive. The Council being alive was a whim, Benezia was long dead, Saren too. Zaeed, that fucking Merc had been a handful, but fun to have around… 

“No. I’ve outlived my welcome.” 

“The we face them, and welcome the embrace of the afterlife, together.” 

“Best plan I’ve heard in years.” 


End file.
